Headspin festival date to be its last

DJ Yoda date marks end of 12 years of clubbing

As Headspin comes to an end, DJ/promoter Allan Dunbar talks to Henry Northmore about their final date and why they’ve booked DJ Yoda to play their last night.

So many of Edinburgh’s great clubs have come to an end. Names like Tribal Funktion, Pure, Manga and Going Places all helped to shape the clubbing map of the city, introducing new styles and new music to the capital and now Headspin will join their ranks after announcing that their Festival date will be their last. It’s a night that has helped to soundtrack Edinburgh’s nightlife for over 12 years, inviting names like Mr Scruff, DJ Format, The Psychonauts, Norman Jay (OBE), David Holmes, The Glimmers and more to their decks.‘There’s no one style of music, it was all the styles of music we were into, be it reggae, hip hop through to funk and disco to house and techno through to drum & bass and whatever. There was nothing left out,’ explains DJ/promoter Allan Dunbar, who co-founded the club with Steve Austin. ‘We started the night just to get regular gigs and let the world hear our style of music.’

They were soon joined by Muzik Bedroom Bedlam winner Colin Millar. ‘Colin was the glue that held it all together as me and Steve went off weird on tangents,’ according to Dunbar. Later augmenting their residents’ line-up with scratching from Dava and live percussionist Bongo Dave. ‘We just grabbed people we found interesting and kinda brought them in. We’ve discarded a few too when they’ve not worked out. There was one guy, a lovely guy, who plays the fiddle and we were talking to him at a party and said come along, we start the tune and he comes jumping out in a jester’s costume playing his fiddle, the crowd were a bit mystified as to what was going on,’ laughs Dunbar. ‘We didn’t have him back, nothing to do with his playing but it wasn’t quite right for Headspin.’

For this final date they have secured the talents of cut and paste hip hop master DJ Yoda, a regular at Headspin over the years. ‘Ideally we wanted a residents’ night for our last night, but at the same token we want it to be rammed and you know it’s going to be rammed with Yoda on, but we’re not going to miss any time on the decks because of the extended licence,’ adds Dunbar. ‘The plan is to put him on about 1am, then for the last two hours we’ll be mixing it up and playing some of the classics from over the years.’While it’s always a shame to see a great club shut its doors, the realities of the work involved and the desire to leave Headspin while it’s still at its best were all factors. ‘I want to stop it before it gets rubbish, we don’t want it to fizzle away until it’s a mere shadow of what it was, it would spoil the memory of it. Now hopefully everyone will think back to a packed-out club.’ Though it may not be the last we ever see of Headspin, Dunbar has ideas for one-off events, smaller more intimate nights or maybe even a new monthly club. ‘I don’t know what the future will hold. It’s the end of one chapter but also the start of a new one, and I’m interested to find what’s over the page.’

Mixing funk, hip hop, disco, house and beats, Headspin continues to push the boundaries and raises clubbing to an art form for the last ever time as Headspin hang up the headphones as DJ Yoda rocks the room for their final party.